How “Dropping the Anchor” Can Help You Reconnect With Yourself
/By Concentric Therapist Petru Ilie, LPC, NCC
There’s a particular kind of overwhelm that doesn’t announce itself with sirens. It creeps in quietly; a racing thought, a tight chest, a sudden sense that you’re not quite here. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s grief. Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe it’s the weight of too many decisions, too much noise, too little rest. Whatever the cause, the experience is familiar: you feel swept up, unmoored, unsure how to come back to yourself.
In those moments, your mind might tell you to push through, numb out, or run away. But what if instead you could pause, plant your feet, and reconnect with what matters most? In those moments, we don’t need grand solutions. We need something simple. Grounded. Human. If the overwhelm of life can sometimes feel like a raging storm at sea, is there a way to fasten our boat to the shore? It wouldn’t make the storm go away. And our boat may go up and down with the tumultuous waves. But it doesn’t have to be swept into the abyss just because a storm is here.
That’s where a practice called Dropping the Anchor comes in. It’s a technique from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based approach that helps people relate differently to their thoughts and emotions, especially in times of distress. But more than a technique, it’s a way of saying: I’m here. I’m still me. I can choose who I am and how I respond.
What Is Dropping the Anchor?
Developed and popularized by ACT trainer Dr. Russ Harris, Dropping the Anchor is a three-part practice designed to help you ground yourself in the present moment when your mind feels chaotic or your emotions feel overwhelming. It’s a tool that can last as quick as a few seconds in the middle of doing something, or it can be practiced as an extended meditation practice.
It’s built around the acronym ACE:
● Acknowledge what’s happening
● Connect with your body
● Engage with what matters to you
Let’s walk through each part; not as a checklist, but as a gentle invitation to try something different toward being who you want to be.
Step One: Acknowledge What’s Happening
This step is deceptively simple. It asks you to pause and notice what’s going on inside you (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations) with open curiosity, without judgment, and without trying to fix or change them.
You might say to yourself:
● “I’m feeling anxious.”
● “I’m having the thought that I’m not good enough.”
● “My stomach feels tight.”
This is mindfulness, but not the kind that demands serenity or tries to manufacture forced peace. It’s the kind that says to yourself: I see you. You’re here. In your distress. And that’s okay.
When we resist or suppress our inner experience, we often amplify it. Parts of ourselves feel unseen and unheard, so they may get louder in the form of feelings, thoughts, inclinations, or bodily sensations. Acknowledging what’s present, even if it’s uncomfortable, creates a safe space. Space to breathe. Space to choose. Space to be. What is most soothing to our nervous system is to be seen, heard, and accepted. Whether others can do that for us or not, one step toward healing can be for ourselves to see, hear, and acknowledge these parts of ourselves, just as they are.
Step Two: Connect With Your Body
When the mind spirals, the body often disappears from awareness, lost in time and space. We become floating heads, lost in thought, disconnected from the ground beneath us. This step invites you to gently return to your physical self.
You might:
● Feel your feet pressing into the floor
● Wiggle your fingers or stretch your arms
● Take a slow breath and feel it move through your chest
● Roll your shoulders or unclench your jaw
● If you have the time, take a full body scan from head to toe, connecting with each section
This isn’t about relaxation. It’s about presence. You’re reminding yourself: I have a body. I’m here. I’m safe enough to feel this moment. Though it may feel so daunting, the only reality is not the storm around me, but also my embodied conscious existence. My feelings, thoughts, impulses, and sensations are experienced within a body that surrounds them. Grounding techniques like this work because they interrupt the loop of mental distress. They bring us back into the here and now; not as an escape, but as a reconnection or connection with ourselves.
Step Three: Engage With What Matters
This part can be quiet. Sometimes subtle. Continue doing what you’re doing, but in a way that aligns with your values and who you aspire to be. It asks: What do I want to stand for in this moment? Not in a grand, life-defining way. Just here. Just now. Maybe it’s kindness. Courage. Honesty. Patience. Whatever it is, take one small action that reflects that value as you continue doing or engaging in what you’re doing.
For instance:
● If your value is connection, you might send a thoughtful message
● If your value is health and wellbeing, you might drink a glass of water
● If your value is authenticity, you might speak a truth you’ve been holding
It may not even be about changing what you’re doing, but about reminding yourself that you can do it in a way that connects with what’s important to you. In other words, it’s not about the what, but the how and the why.
This is values-based living: choosing actions that reflect who you want to be, even when things feel hard. When we act in line with our values, we reclaim agency. We stop reacting and start acting and responding. We move from survival to intention.
Photo by Kerin Gedge on Unsplash
Some Real-Life Examples
Here are some examples of how you can drop the anchor in just a few seconds, even as you are in the middle of doing something. This practice is not about retreating from the reality around you, but about facing where you are, while accepting what’s going on inside you and engaging according to your values.
So let’s say you’re about to have a difficult conversation. Your heart is racing. Your mind is full of worst-case scenarios. You pause to Drop the Anchor:
● Acknowledge: “I’m feeling fear and self-doubt. My mouth is dry.”
● Connect: You feel your feet on the ground. You take a slow breath. You unclench your jaw.
● Engage: You remember your values of kindness and patience. You decide to listen first before you speak, so you give your full attention to empathetically listen to the other.
Or imagine you’re giving a presentation. Your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty, and your mind is screaming, “You’re going to mess this up.” So you decide to Drop the Anchor as you are presenting:
● Acknowledge: “I’m noticing fear and self doubt. My chest feels tight.”
● Connect: You take measured breath. You roll your shoulders back. You squeeze and relax your fists.
● Engage: You remember your values of growth and honesty. So you speak the next sentence of your presentation with intention and genuineness.
In both these instances you haven’t erased the anxiety, but it’s not ruling you, either. You just took a few seconds to interrupt the default mode of being automatically hooked by your thoughts, emotions, or sensations. Maybe you’re doing the same activity as before, but you turned off the autopilot and took the wheel, so you can do it in the way you want to. You’ve made space to act with integrity, in light of your values, through the storm of unsettling emotions and thoughts. That’s the quiet power of this practice.
You can practice dropping the anchor in a few seconds throughout your day like this, and you can also do it as a meditation technique for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or even an hour or more. The sky’s the limit with how to practice this (the resources at the end of the blog can help with more examples if this vibes with you). And like with learning any skill, it takes repeated consistent practice to develop the new neural pathways that lead to a different way of being. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes.
Why This Matters
In my work as a therapist, I often sit with people in the thick of it: depression, anxiety, grief, relational pain, existential uncertainty. What I’ve seen, again and again, is that we may not be able to change the storms that envelop us, but we can choose how we face them and who we are becoming through them; and that self-actualizing choice can make all the difference. With practice, we can tap into that freedom to choose more and more.
I’ve learned that presence is transformative toward that empowerment. Not because it fixes everything. But because it creates that anchor of connection, that safe space of acceptance; that space to choose, to remember who you are. Dropping the Anchor is one way to create that space within yourself. It’s not flashy. It’s not dramatic. But it’s real. And it can work.
It’s not just a catchy technique, but a way of relating to yourself with compassion. It’s about saying, I can be here, with myself, even when it’s hard. That’s the heart of emotional resilience. Not avoiding discomfort but learning to stand in it without losing yourself.
So Dropping the Anchor is not a way to make bad feelings disappear, a “positive thinking” trick, or a way to avoid problems. It’s a skill for coping with overwhelming emotions, thoughts, or sensations, a way to be present in the moment without getting lost in it, and a bridge between mindfulness and meaningful action.
How Dropping the Anchor Fits Into ACT Therapy
Dropping the Anchor is based on the well-researched and evidence-based tradition of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
ACT (read as the word “act,” as in “action,” not as the acronym “A-C-T”) is more than a theory or a set of techniques. Rather, it’s a holistic life philosophy, a way of approaching existence with openness, flexibility, and purpose. It’s about bravely accepting what isn’t ours to change, while committing to meaningful action toward what is ours to change, guided by our values. A lot of our mental and emotional distress is amplified by trying to change the things that we can’t while not changing the things that we can.
At the core of ACT are six interwoven processes that help us respond to that conundrum with compassion and clarity. “Dropping the Anchor” touches all six, offering a moment-to-moment way to practice psychological flexibility. Here’s how each process shows up:
1. Acceptance
Instead of fighting or avoiding painful thoughts and feelings (which doesn’t work anyway), ACT invites us to make room for them, gently, without judgment. In Dropping the Anchor, this begins with acknowledging what’s here: “I’m feeling anxious.” “I’m noticing tension.” It’s not resignation. It’s a willingness to be with what’s real, so we can respond rather than react.
2. Cognitive Defusion
This process helps us step back from unhelpful thoughts, seeing them as passing mental events rather than absolute truths. We don’t have to automatically obey a thought as if it’s true, but we don’t have to fight it either (which could lead to endless rumination that we can’t win). When we name a thought (“I’m having the thought that I’m failing”), we create space between ourselves and the story. We de-fuse ourselves from that thought, we are no longer merged with it, as if it were the whole of us. It’s just one thought, and we can choose how to relate to it. Dropping the Anchor helps us notice thoughts without getting tangled in them.
3. Contact with the Present Moment
ACT emphasizes being here and now, not lost in the past or in the future. Connecting with the body (feeling your feet, breathing slowly) is a direct way to return to the present. It’s not about escaping discomfort, but about anchoring ourselves in what’s actually happening right now.
4. Self-as-Context
This is the part of us that can observe our experience without being defined by it; we can call it the noticing self. When we drop the anchor, we practice stepping into that observer role: instead of saying “I am overwhelmed,” we say, “I notice I’m feeling overwhelmed, and I’m still here.” It’s a way of remembering that we are much more than our thoughts, more than our emotions. Our consciousness is an integrated multifaceted self, who can relate to all the parts of ourselves, whether they show up in emotions, thoughts, impulses, or sensations. Our real self is the space that holds these parts all together, and can learn to relate them according to our values.
5. Values
Values are the qualities of being that we want to embody; stuff like love, kindness, courage, honesty, connection. They’re not goals. They’re not about what we want to achieve, but about who we want to be on the way to our achievements. They’re the kind of things we wish people would say at our eulogy when they celebrate our life. Engaging with what matters to us (a different way of saying “our values”) is the final step of Dropping the Anchor, reminding us that even in distress, we can choose one small action that reflects who we want to be.
6. Committed Action
This is where values meet behavior. ACT is not about philosophizing, reflecting endlessly, or detaching through meditation. The point of mindfulness in ACT is to engage more authentically, not less. It’s about doing. And it’s not about perfection either, but it’s about directional movement. In Dropping the Anchor, committed action might be as simple as staying in the conversation, acknowledging an emotion, or taking a breath before responding. Each small step can build a life that feels more aligned and meaningful.
Together, these six processes form the backbone of ACT, and Dropping the Anchor is a way to practice all of them in real time. It’s not a magic fix. But it’s a way to come back to yourself, again and again, with gentleness and intention. It’s a microcosm of the ACT model, distilled into a moment.
Want to Explore This Further?
If this practice resonates with you, you might enjoy Russ Harris’s accessible intro book to this topic, The Happiness Trap, or the ACT Mindfully Free Resources page.
And if you’re curious about how existential mindfulness-based therapy, ACT, or therapy in general could support you on your journey, I’d be glad to meet you. You can learn more about my approach by reading my bio on our group page and see if we might be a good fit.
The storms will come. That’s part of being human. But you don’t have to be swept away. You can drop the anchor. You can stay connected. You can choose, even in the middle of it all, to live in a way that feels true to who you want to be.